Distribution of the network

[bytemaster]

THe issue is cost of capital.  A home PC has dual use, so your capital cost is 0.  Big farms are only profitable in the short term or after big price spikes.  Once difficulty rises it will no longer be profitable and power will return to the people :)

That said, cloud computing is equal access and anyone can choose to invest in it.   

[RejectKid]

It's already happening now really with people signing up for cloud servers just to mine.  Heck even I am participating in Microsoft's free 20cores for a month plan to mine with.

In my eye that'll be a good thing.  With more money being put into the mining and such the more people will say it's worth which ultimately the only way any of these coins have value is because someone says so

[phoenix]

In Bitcoin, the network shifted from cpu to gpu to fpga to asic mining. In every stage the shift created a movement toward a more centralized network. The key factor that cut people out at each stage is money, it's more expensive to mine on an asic than a gpu, which is more expensive than a cpu. In protoshares and bitshares, there is no opportunity for centralization through more advanced hardware. However, there is still the opportunity for centralization by means of a central point accumulating more cpus to mine. Do you think this could become a realistic possibility if bitshares or another momentum POW dac becomes large enough?